Tradition, Genre, Ethics and Politics in Ausiàs March's maldit

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1. BNM, ms. 3695, fol. 185. The manuscript is dated 1 May 1546. In the same hand, different from the copyist's, it is noted on fol. 23 that stanzas X and XI of Poem CXVI ‘no son en la impressio y par no sien desta obra ny del autor’. It is clear from fol. V, where the dates of la impressio are given as 1543 and 1545, that all these marginalia were made before the editions of 1555 and 1560. For recent arguments, see Pere Ramírez i Molas, La poesia d'Ausiàs March. Analisi textual, cronologia, elements filosòfics (Basle: privately printed, 1970), 245–48.

2. The poem is found in manuscripts ABCDEG ₁ HIKMN and editions bcde (Pagès’ abbreviations); J is a copy of A; C is basically a copy of c; c is essentially a reprint of b.

3. Poem XLII, 11. 1–8. The text is from my Ausiàs March. Cinquanta-vuit poemes (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1989). This text is based on the important manuscript of March's poems in the Library of the Hispanic Society of America, ms. 2281, which Amédée Pagès was only able to use to a very limited extent in his critical edition, Les Obres d'Auzias March (Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, 1912–14). The manuscript is studied by me in ‘El manuscrit B2281 de la Hispanic Society of America amb poesies d'Ausiàs March’, forthcoming in Llengua i Literatura, IV. For reasons which will become apparent, I have used the variants of manuscript B (BN Paris, ms. espagnol 479) at 11.12, e pens que l nom En Joan Junyent caiga [N: E son dret nom en johan me pens caygua] and 17, volgués amar N’Armangol cavaller [N: volgués muntar en amar cavaller].

4. The heading is found only in the library of the Ateneu de Barcelona, ms. 1, fol. 155r: ‘moss auzias march maldit’. The term maldit was by no means applied solely to poems that attacked women; Simon Pastor's still unedited maldit (Cançoner d'amor, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. espagnol 225, fols. 236v–237v) is written against an unnamed man.

5. Martí de Riquer, Historia de la literatura catalana. Part antiga, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Ariel, 1964), II, 490.

6. The assumption about the personal basis of the poem is to be found in Amédée Pagès, Commentaire des poésies d’Auzias March (Paris: Champion, 1925), 55: ‘March est surtout indigné que Na Monbohí, dont un chevalier tel que lui a été autrefois l'amant (v. 10), ait pu se livrer au vulgaire marchand de draps, En Johan’. The same idea also underlies the richly suggestive article of Marie-Claire Zimmermann, ‘Les Métamorphoses du maldit chez Ausiàs March’, Ibérica, I (1977), 333–47, for example on p. 336: ‘Le rival s'appelle En Johan’. The poem appears in editions b (1543) and in c (1545) as one of the obres de amor; in d (1555) as a canto de amor; in e (1560) as a cant d'amor.

7. Pau de Bellviure, ‘Dompna gentil, vos m'enculpats a tort’ in M. Milà y Fontanals, Obras completas, ed. M. Menéndez Pelayo (Barcelona: Alvaro Verdaguer, 1890), III, 459—61. March mentions Pau in Poem LI, 11. 37–38; Santillana numbers him among ‘los catalanes, valencianos e aun algunos del Reyno de Aragón [que] fueron e son grandes ofiçiales desta arte [la poesia]’ (Las poéticas castellanas de la edad media, ed. Francisco López Estrada [Madrid: Taurus, 1984], 58). The remainder of my discussion of maldits is limited to those which were written before or approximately in the same period as March's. I have excluded Bernat de Palaol's ‘Cercats d'uymay, ja n siats belha y pros’ (ed. Martín de Riquer, ‘Contribución al estudio de los poetas catalanes que concurrieron en las justas de Tolosa’, Boletín de la Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura, XXVI (1950), 280-311 [p. 298]); this has sometimes been referred to as a maldit, but it is actually a comiat with no sense of malediction.

8. Pere de Queralt, ‘Sens pus tardar me ve de vos partir’ in Martín de Riquer, ‘Miscelánea de poesía medieval catalana’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, XXVI (1954–56), 151–85, esp. 156–60).

9. Jordi de Sant Jordi, ‘En mal poders, enqueres en mal loch’ in Martin de Riquer and Lola Badia, Les poesies de Jordi de Sant Jordi (Valencia: Tres i Quatre, 1984), 179–87. A further poem, ‘Ara hojats, dompnas, que-us fau sauber’ (Les poesies, 157–63) is, much as Badia suggests (158), a tongue-in-cheek poem of a very generalized kind.

10. Fra Joan Basset, ‘Yeu vos requir, (mi) Na ladria malvada’ in Lírica trobadoresca del segle XV, ed. Pere Bohigas (Barcelona: Institut de Filologia Valenciana/Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, 1988), 78–79.

11. Fra Joan Basset, ‘Pus havets bondat despesa’ in Lírica trobadoresca del segle XV, 80–81.

12. The Masdovelles poems are found principally in the so-called Cançoner dels Masdovelles (published as Cançoner dels Masdovelles [manuscrit no. 11 de la Biblioteca de Catalunya], ed. R. Aramon i Serra [Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, 1938]), in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. espagnol 225, its copy, BdC ms. 10, and BdC ms. 9. Those compositions which either bear the rubric maldit or clearly belong to the genre are as follows:

Guillem de Masdovelles: Cançoner dels Masdovelles, nos. 90 (‘Ja no veyra mi-doncs que pus la blan’), 91 (‘Diats, mi-doncs: ¿cuydau-vos que-us servescha?’), 92 (‘Pus m'avets ffayt a tan gran fallimen’). Johan Berenguer de Masdovelles: Cançoner dels Masdovelles, nos. 16 (‘Tan me pinet, dona, que no pusch pus’), 30 (‘¿Per que xi car, dona, ves mi teniu?’ [this is one of a group of three poems, with nos. 29 and 31, about ‘una dona qui llexa l'om gentil per pendre lo vila’, Cançoner dels Masdovelles, p. 44]), the two poems written for his cousin: 87 (‘Pus no us dech res,¿ per que m dieu que-us pach?’) and 88 (‘Molt vos sou tart, dona, reguoneguda’), 93 (‘Voler m'enpeny, he raho m'o consent’) (author not clearly identified, but linguistically more probably Johan Berenguer than his uncle), 132 (‘Ara conech sso que no conexia’), 133 (‘Anuig mostrau aver que-us vulla’), and 134 (‘pus dau raho a mi, de mal perlar’). No. 97 (‘No m ffera gens vostra descortesia’) is a sparça clearly related to the maldits: the lady is accused here of being a falça desonesta. No. 48 (‘Aquestes velles vils mardoses’) is a jocular maldit contra les velles which is followed by a ‘cobla en deffensio de les velles bones’, no. 49). Pere Johan de Masdovelles: ‘Temps es estat que m anàveu pastar’ i ‘Liurada us sou a mi no per amor’ (BN Paris, fols. 134-135v; bDc Ms. 10, fols. 116-17, BdC ms. 9, fols. 21-23), both unedited.

13. Guillem de Masdovelles, Cançoner dels Masdovelles, no. 91.

14. Guillem de Masdovelles, Cançoner dels Masdovelles, nos. 92 and 97.

15. Guillem de Masdovelles, Cançoner dels Masdovelles, no. 92.

16. Johan Berenguer de Masdovelles, Cançoner dels Masdovelles, nos. 87–88 and 30.

17. Johan Berenguer de Masdovelles, Cançoner dels Masdovelles, no. 97.

18. Pere Johan de Masdovelles, ‘Liurada us sou a mi no per amor’.

19. Francesc Ferrer. Obra completa, ed. Jaume Auferil (Barcelona: Barcino, 1989), 93.

20. See Brunetto Latini, Llibre del tresor, ed. Curt J. Wittlin, 4 vols. (Barcelona: Barcino, 1971–1986), II, 75–76, or T. H. White, The Book of Beasts (repr. Gloucester: Sutton, 1984), 145–46. The closest parallel, perhaps through a common source, is with Anselm Turmeda (here quoted from the 1544 French translation of the lost Catalan original): ‘Que vous semble, frère Anselme, de la vraye amour que porte la Torterelle à son mascle? que quand il est mort, elle faict très grand deuil, et ne repose jamais sur arbre verd, ny ne buyt eaue claire, mais troublé, et si ell ne trouve de l'eaue troublé, elle la trouble avec les pieds, et alors boyt. Et puis demours veufre tout le temps de sa vie, sans qu'elle veulle prendre mary’ (Disputation de l’Asne, ed. R. Foulché-Delbosc, Revue Hispanique, XXIV [1911], 358–479 (p. 459)).

21. Ferran Soldevila, ‘La Reyna Maria, muller del Magnànim’, in Sobiranes de Catalunya [Memorias de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, X, 1928, 213–347 at p. 244]: ‘Tenim notícia que en certa ocasió, la Reina havia aconseguit que algunes dones s'allunyessin del “lloch públich” i una d'elles hi va tornar. La Reina Maria va saber-ho i tot seguit va escriure que li havien “promès que daciavant se lunyarien de peccat, e per aquests sguarts e per dar exemple a altres volriem e trobaríem plaer que, si fer-se pot, corregues la vila ab bons açots” ‘ (Letter dated at Tortosa, 14 April 1434).

22. ‘Unas tetas tiene para ser donzella como si tres vezes oviesse parido; no parescen sino dos grandes calabaças’ [La Celestina, ed. Dorothy S. Severin [Madrid: Cátedra, 3rd. ed., 1989], at p. 228). For the general social status of wet nurses and the beliefs surrounding breast-feeding, see Valerie Fildes, Wet Nursing. A History from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), especially 26–67.

23. In the bestiaries, the partridge is sometimes depicted as tormented by carnal desire; this meaning has been applied by Alan Deyermond to a poem of Florencia Pinar in ‘Spain's First Women Writers’, in Women in Hispanic Literature. Icons and Fallen Idols, ed. Beth Miller (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1983), 44—48. The reading cogullada appears in mss. N and K. Other sources give alternative readings for the second hemistich of this line (orthographical differences are not shown here): o tortras sens cardada (A), o tortra o becada (CDEHbcd), e tortra o bequada (G₁).

24. An underlying tradition links this with the description of Celestina in the first Auto: ‘Si entre cient mugeres va y alguno dize «¡Puta vieja!» sin ningún empacho luego buelve la cabeça y responde con alegre cara’ (La Celestina, ed. cit., at p. 108).

25. Lo conhort, 11. 519–53 in Obres completes, 231–32.

26. Leopoldo Piles Ros, La población de Valencia a través de los «Llibres de Avehinament» 1400–1449 (Valencia: Ayuntamiento de Valencia, 1978), 74, 123, 216, and 254.

27. ‘Lo darer dia de febrer, qui fonch dilluns de carnestoltes, açotaren quatre dones per alcavotes, ab garlandes dalaces, cavalcant ab asens: fonch la primera na Colivella . . .’ (Dietari del capellà d’Anfós el Magnànim, ed. Josep Sanchis i Sivera [Valencia: Acción Bibliográfica Valenciana, 1932], at p. 197; the entry is dated 1456).

28. For the sirventesch see Amédée Pagès, Auzias March et ses prédécesseurs. Essai sur la poésie amoureuse at philosophique en Catalogne aux XlVe et XVe siècles (Paris: Champion, 1912: repr. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1974), at p. 136.

29. Guilhem de la Tor, ‘Un sirventes farai d'una trista persona’, in Martín de Riquer, Los trovadores, II, 1174–75 (no. 234). Riquer's translation is as follows: ‘No existe en el mundo dama de la que se pueda creer que le diera ninguna esperanza de amor después de que yo le hubiese contado su fiera malandanza, su fiera mezquindad, su fiero deshonor, y después de haber visto con sus [propios] ojos su fiera panza hinchada, su fiera glotonería y su fiero aspecto’.

30. See Pagès, Auzias March et ses prédécesseurs, 164–68.

31. References are to the longest version of this work. This consists of five books in prose and is published as Flors del gay saber estiers dichas Las Leys d'Amors, 3 vols., ed. M. Gatien-Arnoult (Paris-Toulouse, 1841–1843). A shorter version (three books) is in prose and verse: Las Leys d'Amors, 4 vols., ed. Joseph Anglade (Toulouse: Privat, 1919–1920). An even shorter verse version (7,500 lines) is in the Biblioteca de Catalunya, ms. 239, published by Anglade in Romania, XLV (1919), 161–78.

32. Luis de Averçó: Torcimany, 2 vols., ed. José María Casas Homs (Barcelona: CSIC, 1956).

33. Leys, III, 124. Cf. Torcimany, I, 123–24.

34. Pagès is the first to suggest that there is a close relationship between the two poems that appear together in mss. BDG₁KN (Commentaire, p. 55). Of these, N is the oldest and most important (c.1480–1490), while its general correspondence to the order of F, the older of the two base manuscripts used by Pagès in Obres, suggests strongly that F also contained Poem XLII in the missing folios between Poems XLI and XLIII. Ms. A (68 poems) places it between Poems XVIII and XXXII; ms. H (79 poems) has it between Poems XXV and LXIV; ms. M has only six poems, three of which including XLII, are placed between pieces by other poets; editions bcde and ms. C place it between Poems LXXI and VIII.

35. Poem XLI, 25–32. The text is from ms. N. In 1.26, I have corrected the defective reading of N (desvergoyat) with that of G₁.

36. For an analysis of March's sophistical use of analogy here, see my The Pervasive Image. The Role of Analogy in the Poetry of Ausiàs March (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1985), 143–45.

37. Leys, III, 126.

38. Epistolari de la València medieval, ed. Agustín Rubio Vela (Valencia: Universitat de València, 1985), at p. 12.

39. See Dietari del capellà d’ Anfós el Magnànim, p. 95 and Anales Valencianos, ed. María Luisa Cabanes Català (Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, 1983), at p. 24. The biblical reference is to Exodus 8 and 10.

40. Poem XXIII, 11. 9–12: ‘L'ull de l'hom pec no ha tan fosca vista / que vostre cos no jutge per gentil. / No 1 coneix tal com lo qui és subtil: / hoc la color, mas no sap de Ia llista’.

41. Alfonso had a special storehouse, the botiga dels draps, for the particular use of his Neapolitan court, where Florentine cloth took pride of place. See Lina Montalto, La corte di Alfonso I di Aragona. Vesti e gale (Naples: Ricciardi, 1922), 95.

42. The manuscript is discussed, and in my view undervalued, by Pere Ramírez i Molas, ‘El problemàtic cant 128 d'Ausiàs March i la tradició manuscrita’, Miscel·lània Aramon i Serra (Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia, 1980), II, 497–512.

43. The question of the identity of Joan Junyent is treated by the present writer in a forthcoming article, ‘Ausiàs March i els mercaders’, in Butlletí de la Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona.